Today's Pix

Today's Haiku

Five syllables here

Seven more syllables there

Are you happy now?

Why Does "The Media" Suck So Bad?

Well, here's a pretty good example from NYT, "reporting" on the special session in Texas, where Repubs were trying to jam thru a bill to kill abortion rights in at least half of the state.

“With all the ruckus and noise going on,” Mr. Dewhurst said, he could not complete administrative duties to make the vote official and sign the bill. Senate Democrats and women’s right’s advocates said the real reason the vote could not be made official was a time stamp on official documents that showed the bill passed after midnight. The Legislature’s official Web site first posted that the Senate’s vote occurred on Wednesday, after the midnight deadline, but the date was later changed to Tuesday for unknown reasons.

Yo, NYT Editors; that last bit there - the date was later changed to Tuesday for unknown reasons - that's why nobody trusts what you guys put out any more.

Yes, you need to maintain something like a Veneer of Integrity, and you need to avoid making unfounded accusations of wrong-doing.  OK, we get that.  But "unknown reasons", and you just leave it at that?  That's strictly bush-league surface-level reporting; any high school monthly could come up with something better than that.

Maybe you could ask a question or two that might be germane to the proceedings in some obscure tangential way; like, oh I dunno - is it common for the time stamp to be changed like that?  When was the last time a time stamp was changed?  Is it legal for someone to change a time stamp after the fact?  Is there anything in the Ethics Handbook or in the Rule Book about such things?

So why do we think you guys suck at your job?  Because you suck at it.

Ashamed Of My Name

With the possible highly probable exception of the Bread-Mold-As-Brain-Tissue Wing of The Party That Dares Not Speak Its Name, Chief Justice John G Roberts - NO FUCKING RELATION TO YOURS TRULY, BTW - will not be remembered fondly.

Does the name Roger B Taney ring any bells?  How 'bout Melville Fuller?

I'm trying to stay with my doctrine of Judge Slowly here, but the SCOTUS ruling on Section IV of the VRA yesterday looks like another Monument to Stoopid.

Here's the metaphor: Very few people are robbing banks any more, so we can safely get rid of the law that makes Bank Robbery a crime.

We go now to Charlie Pierce for some brain bleach:

Today Among People Who Wear Robes

A Little More On The Voting Rights Atrocity

Even More About Today's Voting Rights Atrocity

We are so fucked.

DumFux News

I'm sure they'll say it was just a joke; a little self-deprecating silliness - cuz hey, that's what all the Libruls are saying about us anyway.

But the one thing you have to know by now is that you can't bring the funny if you don't bring the truth.

USA - USA - USA

We're number...18?  Aah fuck.

Per Global Wealth DataBook (Credit Suisse):

What happens when a country's middle class takes a hit?  Look around.

Hey, Hey Paula

I truly don't give a good goddamn about Paula Deen or the little dramas that play themselves out behind the scenes of daytime cable TV.  If this was just another dustup over royalties or whose ego got bruised in a contract fight or whatever, then none of it matters at all, and I'd leave it alone.  But it isn't, and it does, so I can't.

I'll leave it at this, from Dan Bernstein at CBSChicago.com:

Until yesterday, she had the system wired to play up all the folksy charm of her heritage while smoothing away any rough edges of its horrific historical dark side. She even accomplished one of the most shockingly brazen endorsement deals in the history of modern media – finally getting around to admitting her own diabetes, only to begin shilling for a drug purported to fight the disease. She was stuffing her drooling viewers’ bodies full of excess glucose, only to grab at their money once they talked to their alarmed doctors.

A charade that never really should have been allowed to happen in the first place is finally over. An uneducated, unattractive woman who can’t cook somehow stumbled up to a prime position in American media by pandering successfully to similarly stupid, unhealthy people, aided by TV executives happy to keep cashing their checks.

hat tip = Blue Gal

Today's Scary Numbers

From the documentary I posted earlier today:

In the US, with Congress consistently getting approval ratings down around 10-15%, something like 96% of all Reps and Senators are re-elected and returned to Washington.

In the Soviet Union, when their "polling" was all about how everybody dearly loved all those wacky guys-n-gals in Moscow, the re-election rate was somewhere around 92%.

Call me crazy, but y'know - just sayin' - maybe we're doin' it wrong(?)

A Fragile Democracy

A media system wants ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity.

Your homework for this week:

Smart People

...talking about shit that matters.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tim Wise

On the creation of "Whiteness":



I think I put this up at least once before - it bears repeating.

Mr Delbert McClinton

Rumored (not-completely-falsely) to have been the guy who taught John Lennon to play harmonica, Delbert's just one of those guys who gets around so much and plays so much that you could believe he invented Blue-Eyed Soul (which ain't all that far from a natural fact neither).

Practically a throw-away:

It's Tough Out There For A T-Rex

Dot, Meet Dot

Not to get too magical-mystical here, but when we're talking about the FISA Court and USA PATRIOT Act and the shenanigans at NSA and the FBI, etc - I think I have to go along with Mark Udall; mostly anyway - and Obama too btw.  There has to be a balance, which (imo) we've let get away from us in a pretty big way.

Balance is kinda the key to the whole self-governance thingie.  We have to continue to develop better ways to catch the bad guys after the fact - and better yet, prevent the bad guys from doin' the dirt in the first place - without making it more probable that some tin-plated martinet will abuse the power, and turn it to his own ends.  (Thank you, Capt Obvious)

Here's 5 minutes of Udall on NPR, talking about what he and Ron Wyden are proposing:



Almost at the very end, Udall makes a point that kinda blew up in my brain.  He said (paraphrasing), "...privacy is the ultimate form of freedom".

If I make a not-entirely-silly leap, I can say Privacy = Anonymity; and in a still not-so-silly way, Anonymity = Invisibility; and Invisibility is very much the be-all and end-all of the super powers.

On the one hand, if nobody can see you, then nobody can fuck with you.  This is mostly a very good thing for individuals.

But on the other hand, if you can't be seen, then you can't be held to account for anything you do.  This is always a very bad thing for societies.

So, balance.  Aye, there's the rub.

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Sen Warren Of Massachusetts

Cain't hep muh-sef.  My mad crush on Elizabeth Warren continues apace.

By way of Charlie Pierce at Esquire:

"I have heard the argument that transparency would undermine the Trade Representative's policy to complete the trade agreement because public opposition would be significant," Warren explained. "In other words, if people knew what was going on, they would stop it. This argument is exactly backwards. If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States."

advice and consent - a legal expression in the United States Constitution that allows the Senate to constrain the President's powers of appointment and treaty-making